Page 60 of Striking Range

I feel his words like they’re a knife personified; I can feel them gut me, skin me alive, ready me for sacrifice.

“Sorry?” I sound so genuinely confused, like I misheard him.

I did, right? Because it was absolutely a thing, even if it wasn’t an exclusive one.

“What we did… it was wrong. It was a mistake.”

“It was wrong? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Everett backtracks, stumbling over his words as he says, “T-that’s not what I meant. For me it’s wrong. For me. For you it’s okay—because it’s you.”

I can feel him. I can feel that little part of me that I worked so hard at shutting away—and he’s banging on the door to get free, ready to pounce.

And Everett? He’s in striking range.

“Only for me it’s okay? That sounds just as bad.”

He groans, rubbing a hand down his face. “It was a mistake, okay? Can we drop it?”

I turn to face him fully. “No, Everett, we can not drop it. What’s your problem? You liked it. You said you’d thought about it before, that you wanted it. I saw it on your face. You came all over me—”

“Enough!” Everett jumps to his feet, manic and angry. “I did something stupid; I let my hormones get the best of me! I’m straight, Skylar. I like women. Stop pushing me.”

“Pushing you?!” I shout, standing to meet him where he is, rigid and startled. “I didn’t push you into shit! You were just as into it as I was. What’s changed? Why are you acting like this? All I’m saying is that sleeping with several people at once isn’t safe.”

I need to count backward from one hundred; I need to take a timeout. Dr. Damen would tell me to start using “I” statements. But none of these techniques are being put to good use, not as I stare at Everett with so much rage and hurt building inside of me.

Calm down, Skylar, my mind says. Remember who this is.

“I’m not sleeping with several people at once. We didn’t have sex.” He says it so straightforwardly that I can’t help but roll my eyes at him.

“Jesus.”

He ignores me, adding, “I’m going on a date with Ashley, because she’s a woman and that’s what I like. What’s expected of me.”

My eyes narrow on him, on his heaving chest and his frantic expression. “Expected of you? Evie, what—”

“Drop it!” he screeches. “Stop trying to make me gay!”

That silence, the one from earlier? It returns to crowd the space between us, and it’s fucking deafening. I don’t know who Everett is right now. I don’t know what’s happening to him or what he wants, but I do know that he’s hurting me.

It fucking hurts.

Making him gay? Bullshit. He was desperate for it, for me. I didn’t make him, push him, or coerce him. I won’t let him pin this on me.

That part of me that I hate so much settles back down, once again falling into a deep sleep. And in its wake, all that is left for me is sorrow.

I can’t be in this room with him. I can’t stare at a face that holds so many memories, so much comfort and love, and not try to sew this betrayal into it. To shove these two conflicting sides of him into one whole being.

Does this mean that I want him? That this attraction is more than lust? I can figure that out later. Right now, he needs to go before he sees me cry.

I refuse to give him this—this part of me he’s earned through poor wording and betrayal.

“Get out,” I tell him, searching for self-preservation.

He jumps, startled. “Puppy—”

“Everett, get the fuck out of my apartment before I drag you out.” I believe my words are stern, but as Everett makes no move to leave, I step forward, adding, “I’m not sure what your problem is; if you have some kind of internalized homophobia or if you’re just actually an asshole who used me to get off and now you’ve let it ruin our friendship, but either way, I can’t fucking look at you. Leave. Now.”